HGV Driver CV Example

A meticulously crafted, tailored HGV driver CV gives your application the best chance of passing the ATS screening stage, impressing the hiring manager and progressing to the interview stage. Let’s break down the core components of a CV and examine how to build them effectively.

Main HGV driver CV sections

Your HGV driver CV strategy will depend on various factors, including your previous experience, your seniority and the details listed in the job description.

However, no matter where you are in your career, an HGV driver CV must present a clear, compelling narrative of your professional journey. To help you build that story, we’ll now break down the document piece-by-piece—from the initial contact header to your most significant career milestones.

CV Header

Kick off your HGV driver CV with a header listing the essential contact information such as your name, email address, phone number and location. You don't typically need to include your full address. Incorporate design elements that set the tone and design language of your document. Additionally, including your LinkedIn profile as a URL can be useful, as it will help the reader to quickly and easily access further information about your career and credentials.

When you're applying for jobs in the UK, it's generally not advisable to include a photo or more personal details than are strictly necessary, such as your age, gender, ethnicity or nationality. Including these can jeopardise the recruitment process by introducing bias, and can fall foul of the Equality Act 2010.

CV Summary or Objective

Under your header, write a brief CV summary or CV objective, outlining a few of your key skills, qualities and achievements. This short paragraph can help employers to quickly assess your suitability for the role, setting the tone for your HGV driver CV. As an alternative to the CV summary, you might wish to write a CV objective. This serves a similar purpose, but instead of focusing on your experience, it highlights you career ambitions and objectives.

For either a CV summary or an objective, aim for a length of two or three sentences. Showcase a few key skills, personal qualities and career achievements or ambitions, always reviewing the job description as you write, to show how you fulfil the requirements of the role.

An effective summary will include brief reference to one or two of your strongest skills, ensuring they reflect the skills listed in the job description. It's important to make your skills and qualities feel unique to you, and show how you've used them to positive effect in your career to date. Below you'll find an example of a strong HGV driver CV summary.

Above is an example of a less effective CV summary, with some subtle, yet notable differences. Common mistakes that lead to an ineffective summary include a lack of quantifiable experience, vague statements or failing to tailor your summary to the job description. Long, rambling sentences that lack structure can also make your summary harder to read.

Employment History

The work experience section of a CV is usually the most important part. Employers look for evidence of how you've developed and used your skills to good effect in your career to date, as an indication of your likely future performance. Ensure you tailor your work experience section to reflect the job description and show you meet all the essential requirements. This means picking out skills and qualities as keywords and reflecting them back in your work experience bullet points, so employers can assess your likely fit for the role.

List only relevant previous jobs, and add your job title, the name of the employer, its location and your dates of employment. Under this, write several bullet points showing employers how your skills and key qualities contributed to positive outcomes.

What differentiates an excellent work experience section from an average one is the use of action verbs and quantifiable evidence, showing how your actions led directly to positive results in previous roles. You'll also want to show how you've added relevant skills and increased your impact throughout your career progression. See below for an example of how to put the work experience section best practice into action:

Above you can see an example of what not to do with your HGV driver CV work experience section. An unengaging work experience section could be too generic, focusing too much on day-to-day duties rather than skills and achievements. It could also fail to address the job description or lack evidence to show the impact you've made in your career to date.

Education and Qualifications

In your education section, list any formal qualifications you've gained, particularly those that are most recent or required for the role.

To work as an HGV driver, it's not necessary to have a specific degree. However, while a degree isn't usually requested in the job description, it can be useful to include other relevant qualifications in your CV's education section. These might include Certificate of Professional Competence, or other courses that show your hard skills, such as cpc qualification and certification or load securing and safety.

When adding your qualifications to your education section, choose the highest relevant qualifications, and list them in reverse-chronological order, starting with your most recent. For each qualification, add its name and level, the awarding body or institution, its location (if necessary) and your dates of attendance or graduation. If you want to emphasise your education in your CV, include bullet points showing specialist areas of study, projects, awards, society memberships or anything else that helps show you've got the necessary skills for the job.

You might also wish to add specialist qualifications, certifications or licences that are required for the role. If you add any of these, include the expiry date, if the qualification requires renewal in the future.

Skills

In your CV's skills section, you'll want to draw attention to some of your strongest skills that make you suitable for the role. Review the job description to get an idea of the most essential skills, and create a list of hard and soft skills, including some of your strongest, most unique qualities that set you apart from other candidates. For an HGV driver CV, it's essential to include relevant skills for the role that match your skill set, such as customer service and load securing and safety, to impress the reader and show you're qualified for the HGV driver position.

Hard Skills

Hard and technical skills are the essential skills required for carrying out the everyday duties of the role. They might include specialist operation of certain software or equipment, or knowledge of certain industry standards and regulations. You could gain these skills via training, certifications or industry experience. For HGV driver jobs, critical hard skills you've gained in your career can include tachograph operation and compliance, and load securing and safety. Firstly, check the job description, then add four or five key hard skills in your CV that help the employer to decide if you're a good fit for the role.

You'll want to include a list of hard skills that closely matches the skills listed as 'essential' or 'desirable' in the job description, while also reflecting your own strongest technical skills.

Below, you can find the types of skills typically featured in the hard skills section of an HGV driver CV:

Soft Skills

Soft skills are distinct from hard skills and tend to reflect your inherent personal qualities and strengths. These are often more transferable to different roles, and help the reader understand your working style, and your likely fit to the team and the organisational culture. As a result of rapid technological changes to modern ways of working, soft skills are becoming more and more valuable to employers. Soft skills can also be particularly useful for junior or entry-level roles where candidates haven't had the time or career experience to develop hard skills and notable achievements.

Adopt the same approach as you did with your hard skills list, reviewing the job description to understand the requirements, before assessing which soft skills you can provide evidence for throughout your HGV driver CV. Create a list of four or five transferable skills, combining the most essential skills from the job description with the skills that help you to stand out as a unique and compelling candidate for the position.

Below is a selection of soft skills regularly featured in an HGV driver CV.

Language Skills

If you speak any languages in addition to your mother tongue, you might want to include them in your HGV driver CV as a languages section. These can be valuable for your application, whether languages are specified as a requirement in the job description or not. In this section, include any foreign languages you speak to a standard that could be useful in the world of work, with an indication of your proficiency level.

There are a few acceptable ways of citing your foreign language proficiency levels. The simplest way is to assign a basic descriptive word to indicate your skills, such as:

• English: Fluent
• Spanish: Intermediate

You could otherwise use an internationally recognised language standard, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This assigns your language skills a standardised level of competence, as follows:

• A1: Beginner
• A2: Elementary
• B1: Intermediate
• B2: Upper intermediate
• C1: Advanced
• C2: Proficiency

Certifications and Licences

Depending on the role you're applying for, and the type of qualifications you have, you might want to include a separate section for certifications, in addition to the education section. It's often beneficial to include it as it can illustrate a positive attitude towards self-improvement and professional development, as well as a proactive mindset. All these qualities will appeal to most employers and decision-makers. In addition, some roles require specific licences or training just to be eligible for the job, making the certifications section more important. This might include technical roles or positions which require the operation of specialist software, equipment or machinery.

These example certifications and licences are ideal for candidates applying for HGV driver roles:

Additional Information

In addition to the core sections of your CV, optional sections can be a useful way of proving you've got the necessary HGV driver skills. If you're struggling to show all the necessary skills for the job through your work experience or other core sections, optional sections can give your CV the boost it needs to progress you to the interview stage. This could be particularly helpful for entry-level candidates or career changers.

You’ll find more in-depth guidance on structuring your CV in our career resources, designed to help you present your skills as effectively as possible.

Hobbies and Interests

If you participate in hobbies and activities that are related to the role, or use some of the same skill set, you could include them in a hobbies and interests section. Additionally, hobbies and interests are an ideal way to show the employers some elements of your personality and interests beyond work, which can set you apart from other candidates. However, a hobbies and interests section will only make an impact with the reader if the skills you showcase are relevant to the role. As such, only include this section if it helps you fulfil requirements of the role that you've been unable to show elsewhere.

Awards and Achievements

Creating a section for your achievements and awards can help you draw attention to the things you're most proud of in your career to date. If you've won any awards or achieved any key milestones in your career to date, you might want to mention them here.

Voluntary Roles

Another way of showing employers your skills and experience is through volunteer roles. If you're struggling to show you have the necessary credentials through your work experience, volunteering can provide valuable examples of how you've put your skills into action. Structure your volunteering section the same as your work experience section.

Add your job title or the name of the volunteer role, the organisation, its location and the dates you volunteered. Also add some bullet points outlining your skills and experience in the role, as well as any key achievements.

Best action verbs for an engaging HGV driver CV

Including strong action verbs with your work experience bullet points can help you show the impact you made in previous roles. Starting each bullet point with an action verb is a great way to match your experience and achievements to the job description, giving the reader an easy way of identifying your key skills and seeing how you've applied them. When adding action verbs to your work experience bullet points, just remember to always provide quantifiable evidence that shows the value you added for each employer. Use past tense for any action verbs that describe previous roles (for example, 'developed') and present tense for current roles (for example 'collaborating').

Full example of HGV driver CV

Now we've shown you everything that needs to go into your HGV driver CV, we can take a look at how it comes together in its final form in the following example:

If you want a sneak preview of what your one-page, fully designed and finalised CV might look like, see our completed examples.

Tips for optimising your CV for ATS

Many employers now use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to assist with managing the recruitment process. One of the key elements of most ATS apps is the ability to scan CVs and rank them according to their likely match to the job description. By taking on this task, the hiring manager can reduce the time and resources they spend on the initial selection process, making recruitment more efficient and cost-effective.

The increasing usage of ATS apps by recruiters and employers means it's critical to adapt and prepare your applications to successfully navigate this stage of the selection process. Following the tips below will give you everything you need for an ATS-compatible CV:

• Include keywords and phrases that match the job description, making it easy for ATS apps to identify a strong fit for the role.
• Use clear headings that reflect standard CV conventions, such as 'work experience', 'education' and 'skills'.
• Opt for a simple CV layout with consistent formatting, avoiding any special design elements that could make your CV harder for ATS apps to scan.
• Select a font that's widely used and maximises readability, including popular serif and sans serif fonts between size 10 and 12 for body text, and 14 and 16 for headings.
• Use bullet points in place of full sentences and paragraphs, as these are easier for ATS apps to scan and parse, and help your keywords stand out.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the steps to creating an ATS-compatible HGV driver CV, but a few small changes can make a big difference. To smooth the process, use one of our expert-designed, ATS-optimised CV templates to increase your chances of success at this stage of the screening process.

Key takeaways for your HGV driver CV

To stand out from the crowd with your CV, tailor your approach to each individual application, incorporating keywords and phrases that match the job description. Select a suitable CV format for your experience level, and show the reader how you've used skills relevant to the role, to create a positive impact in your career to date.

Finally, using an eye-catching, expert-designed CV template from Jobseeker can really give your CV an edge over those from rival candidates, helping you to achieve success in your job applications.

Sources:

1. Barnet Council (UK local government), Recruitment tips: How to write a supporting statement
2. Jobseeker, HR Statistics